Abstract

Indigenous health education is an important part of the curriculum for medical students. However, there are limited opportunities within the course for students to interact with patients from an Indigenous background. Following an Indigenous health placement in a remote community in the Eastern Kimberley region, a final year medical student reflects on how her medical education did not prepare her for the overwhelming social issues impacting on the health of Indigenous Australians. This article explores how, in the author’s experience, the current medical curriculum offers limited opportunities for first-hand exposure to Indigenous health, with a large proportion of Indigenous health content delivered in a lecture format. This style of teaching does not allow students to discuss, explore, and understand the many complex social issues that contribute to the health of Indigenous Australians. This combination of suboptimal teaching style and little or no first-hand experience results in medical students that are not well prepared to deal with these issues as junior doctors. It is necessary to review the current teaching methods and consider implementing interactive workshops to improve Indigenous Health education, which will in turn improve the health of Indigenous Australians.